"I heard a woman screaming, there were flames coming out," said neighbor Robert Johnson who rushed to help. "I ran downstairs. The poor girl was trapped, she couldn’t get out. I grabbed at the bottom of the frame of the window and as I was pulling it out she came out with it."

Dennis Fire Chief Mark Dellner called Johnson a hero.

"I'd like to commend the guy. He did the right thing, otherwise she would not have gotten out that quick," Dellner said.

"When we opened the door, there were flames everywhere," resident Nick Tsvetkov said.

Tsvetkov lives above the unit where the fire started. He heard the shouts and initially thought it was a small fire. He helped a neighbor disoriented in the smoky hall.

"(I) grabbed her sweatshirt and took her out with me," he said.

A mass casualty incident was declared and several ambulances responded to the scene. Emergency responders found three residents who had jumped lying on the ground.

The 13 people hospitalized included two police officers and two firefighters. Injuries to two of the residents were described as life-threatening.

Dozens of other residents were displaced from the 12-unit complex.

The cause is under investigation, but it is not considered suspicious.